Hayteria
07-01-2008, 03:50
I know I've talked about this before, but I'd like to bring it up again anyway, and besides, there's a few things I forgot to mention last time. So, for my 360th (number of degrees in a circle; probably not a real milestone but whatever) post I'm talking about the juxtaposing labels of ideology.
What's with ideology labels associating so many separate views on separate subjects with each other at the same time? I remember in a YouTube video where Penn Jillette burned an American flag and considered it patriotic, some of the comments for the video said "he sounds like a liberal"; in a different YouTube video, where Penn Jillette dissed animal rights, one of the comments to the video was like "he sounds like a flag-waving conservative redneck who celebrates the deaths of US soldiers in Iraq" as if it's somehow reasonable to "extrapolate" from someone's views on animal rights to someone's views on the Iraq War when they are clearly separate subjects. For the record Penn Jillette has self-identified as a "libertarian" and that's another ideology label, one you wouldn't see in the political spectrum, only in the political compass, but a label nonetheless. There's things I disagree with Penn Jillette about, but I'm just using him as an example of these misinterpretations resulting from ideology labels; same person being talked about on the same site, but opposite reactions. Well, opposite IF ideology labels are legitimate enough that their having liberal and conservative as opposites makes them opposites, which I don't think it does, but the point only needs to be driven home to those who would consider ideology labels that legitimate anyway.
But what could it even mean? What would the "scale" that one would be "left" or "right" on even be measuring? The closest I've heard to trying to give these labels meaning is to say that "right-wing" means "traditional" and that "left-wing" means "anti-tradition"; but when you think about it, this becomes somewhat arbitrary. First of all, one could hold views that could be associated with tradition for non-traditional reasons, and if less traditional means further left, then the newer the opinions, the further left they are. Besides, some things labelled "conservative" ironically imply progress, like genetically modified crops, and those opposed to them are considered "liberal"; Also, if being in favour of experiments on animals, for example, would supposedly make someone "less liberal" then they are deviating from that ideology. However, wouldn't that suggest that "being liberal" has created its own traditions, just like the "traditions" of conservatism, making anti-tradition traditional? Creates a bit of a paradox there, doesn't it? The point is, deviating from one thing does not mean conforming to another, or in this case, deviating from tradition does not mean conforming to the views merely labelled as being the "un-traditional" views, as they certainly wouldn't be the only views deviating from tradition, and they wouldn't necessarily be "in the same direction" as other views that also deviate from tradition.
Now, one could say that the "average liberal" has such and such views, or that the "average conservative" has such and such views, but the "average" person has about one testicle and one ovary, and yet we acknowledge that for the most part, the people who have testicles aren't the same people who have ovaries, and just the same we should consider how being "liberal" or "conservative" on which subjects, for which reasons, etc... creates too many separate sets of opinions to just group. I'd call it stereotyping, but that's a drastic understatement. To say that Jews are greedy or that women are emotional is a stereotype, and while that's bad enough, at least it's only unreasonably associating two things with each other. However, ideology labels unreasonably associate all sorts of separate views with each other into their own big network of simultaneous-multiple-juxtapositions. I don't know how many, and I honestly doubt others would, but I think it's safe to say it's probably in the dozens and continously increasing. And these labels don't just associate opinions with each other, they associate the lifestyles with the opinions, like the "liberal hippies" or the "conservative rednecks"; not to mention how we never know how many new issues could come up, or new opinions on those issues, or new reasons for holding those opinions. We wouldn't know the limits on how many things ideology labels juxtapose at the same time, so I think I'll call it infinity. This makes ideology labels infinitely more stereotypical than things we already consider stereotypes.
And the funny thing is, I admit beforehand, you'll probably catch me using ideology labels every now and then. I'm guessing the next time I'll be using them myself is when I talk about having an NSG political compass collage or something. Of course, I'll probably try to avoid it but I'll be slipping since I'm fairly used to hearing them be used to describe views without other ways to describe them. Kind of like the way some people randomly use cuss words to describe things when they don't know how else to describe them. When I think about it, I know to describe my own set of views as my own personal ideology, but I might temporarily forget that sometimes. However, I probably wouldn't be thinking quite carefully about it if I use such labels then, because when you really think about it, ideology labels are ridiculous.
What's with ideology labels associating so many separate views on separate subjects with each other at the same time? I remember in a YouTube video where Penn Jillette burned an American flag and considered it patriotic, some of the comments for the video said "he sounds like a liberal"; in a different YouTube video, where Penn Jillette dissed animal rights, one of the comments to the video was like "he sounds like a flag-waving conservative redneck who celebrates the deaths of US soldiers in Iraq" as if it's somehow reasonable to "extrapolate" from someone's views on animal rights to someone's views on the Iraq War when they are clearly separate subjects. For the record Penn Jillette has self-identified as a "libertarian" and that's another ideology label, one you wouldn't see in the political spectrum, only in the political compass, but a label nonetheless. There's things I disagree with Penn Jillette about, but I'm just using him as an example of these misinterpretations resulting from ideology labels; same person being talked about on the same site, but opposite reactions. Well, opposite IF ideology labels are legitimate enough that their having liberal and conservative as opposites makes them opposites, which I don't think it does, but the point only needs to be driven home to those who would consider ideology labels that legitimate anyway.
But what could it even mean? What would the "scale" that one would be "left" or "right" on even be measuring? The closest I've heard to trying to give these labels meaning is to say that "right-wing" means "traditional" and that "left-wing" means "anti-tradition"; but when you think about it, this becomes somewhat arbitrary. First of all, one could hold views that could be associated with tradition for non-traditional reasons, and if less traditional means further left, then the newer the opinions, the further left they are. Besides, some things labelled "conservative" ironically imply progress, like genetically modified crops, and those opposed to them are considered "liberal"; Also, if being in favour of experiments on animals, for example, would supposedly make someone "less liberal" then they are deviating from that ideology. However, wouldn't that suggest that "being liberal" has created its own traditions, just like the "traditions" of conservatism, making anti-tradition traditional? Creates a bit of a paradox there, doesn't it? The point is, deviating from one thing does not mean conforming to another, or in this case, deviating from tradition does not mean conforming to the views merely labelled as being the "un-traditional" views, as they certainly wouldn't be the only views deviating from tradition, and they wouldn't necessarily be "in the same direction" as other views that also deviate from tradition.
Now, one could say that the "average liberal" has such and such views, or that the "average conservative" has such and such views, but the "average" person has about one testicle and one ovary, and yet we acknowledge that for the most part, the people who have testicles aren't the same people who have ovaries, and just the same we should consider how being "liberal" or "conservative" on which subjects, for which reasons, etc... creates too many separate sets of opinions to just group. I'd call it stereotyping, but that's a drastic understatement. To say that Jews are greedy or that women are emotional is a stereotype, and while that's bad enough, at least it's only unreasonably associating two things with each other. However, ideology labels unreasonably associate all sorts of separate views with each other into their own big network of simultaneous-multiple-juxtapositions. I don't know how many, and I honestly doubt others would, but I think it's safe to say it's probably in the dozens and continously increasing. And these labels don't just associate opinions with each other, they associate the lifestyles with the opinions, like the "liberal hippies" or the "conservative rednecks"; not to mention how we never know how many new issues could come up, or new opinions on those issues, or new reasons for holding those opinions. We wouldn't know the limits on how many things ideology labels juxtapose at the same time, so I think I'll call it infinity. This makes ideology labels infinitely more stereotypical than things we already consider stereotypes.
And the funny thing is, I admit beforehand, you'll probably catch me using ideology labels every now and then. I'm guessing the next time I'll be using them myself is when I talk about having an NSG political compass collage or something. Of course, I'll probably try to avoid it but I'll be slipping since I'm fairly used to hearing them be used to describe views without other ways to describe them. Kind of like the way some people randomly use cuss words to describe things when they don't know how else to describe them. When I think about it, I know to describe my own set of views as my own personal ideology, but I might temporarily forget that sometimes. However, I probably wouldn't be thinking quite carefully about it if I use such labels then, because when you really think about it, ideology labels are ridiculous.